Warhammer, more like Lamehammer

Ok, let me nerd out here for a minute, I would suggest getting a trash bag to keep yourself clean of Cheetos dust (everyone knows that the side affect of nerding out is Cheetos dust). It was recently made public that there is going to be a Warhammer 40k movie. I love Warhammer 40,000, but not in the way you probably think. I love the books, Dan Abnett specifically. I have never played the miniatures game, Warhammer or Warhammer 40k, or the MMO (I will get into the MMO in a minute) but Dan Abnett writes some kick ass science fiction. I personally think it is some of the best scifi being written today. There are a lot of fan boys out there that don’t really like Abnett because he tends to take the Warhammer IP and make it his own, but he does this in a fantastic way. I know that part of the appeal of playing RPGs (the non video game versions) is that you get to inject your own fantasy into the world, and sometimes things like books and movies tend to canonize things that might not jibe with your fantasy. But you know what? Fan boys are fan boys and they sometimes need to deal. This is one of those times.

The Warhammer 40k IP is a really rich and so much could be pulled out of it that is good, so long as it is done in the correct way, and this movie and the things that have come out in the past have never lived up to the potential they could have, at least not in my option.

In cases you are unfamiliar with what Warhammer is I will give you a quick rundown. There are two basic types of Warhammer. There is regular Warhammer, which takes place in a middle ages type world with elves and orcs and humans and they are all fighting each other (sound familiar?). It’s basically high fantasy. Then there is Warhammer 40,000. Warhammer40k basically takes the things from the high fantasy version of Warhammer and launches them all into space. There is a huge mythology worked into both versions, though personally I like the one from 40k better which, in a nut shell, is that humans are roaming around the galaxy fighting a massive war against the forces of Chaos (Chaos is the primary evil in the Warhammer world). Some of the Chaos are traitors from the Humans that chose to ally themselves with the “dark powers”. It gets a lot more complex than that, and there is even a notion that the Humans are actually in the wrong and Chaos is in the right, it’s all a matter of perspective. If you want to learn more about it check out the 40k wiki.

In 2008 Games Workshop (GW) released “Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning”, which is a massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) where you play a character in the high fantasy version of Warhammer. I have personally never played it, however I have heard it’s a pretty fun game, and it does some things better than existing MMO’s. The big problem is that it took place in the high fantasy Warhammer, which is basically the same setting at World of Warcraft, and WoW was already a massive success. WoW has put other MMO’s out of business, so to release something that is basically the same is a huge mistake.

On top of that the fantasy setting has been done to death (Did anyone even play Conan?). Had GW actually wanted to have a successful MMO without having to even really deal with WoW all they needed to do was set it in the 40k universe, which would make it scifi, and a scifi MMO is something players have been wanting for years (Yes I know there is EVE, but EVE is EVE and not part of this discussion). There is a lot of basic overlap between the fantasy setting for WR and the scifi setting so I don’t think it would have been that big of a deal to make the scifi one. If I had to guess, I would bet that GW was too scared to try something that was new and wanted to stay in the safe realm of MMO settings that had been done already, neglecting the fact that if they hads set the Warhammer MMO in space, they could have created something to actually compete with WoW rather than just something for bored WoW 80s to try out for a couple weeks and then go back over to WoW when they get sick of playing yet another fantasy MMO.

Dan Abnett, who has written comics for both DC and Marvel, as well several originals and, in my opinion, is the best author in the Black Library, which is the book publishing arm of Game Workshop. His books that take place in the 40k universe are awesome. They are well written, no fan fiction crap, with good characters, awesome action and really interesting plots (you can find them in hardcover). If you have not read any of his books I would highly recommend the “Ravenor: Omnibus”. It’s a killer scifi read. The Gaunt’s Ghosts books are awesome too. There are other authors in the Black Library, but the all pale in comparison to Abnett.

Now here is my big gripe with the movie; it’s not going to be based on a work by Abnett, so the best we can hope for is that the CGI will be cool and watching Orc and Space Marines kick the crap out of each other will be entertaining. The movie will go straight to DVD which says to me that only a very small amount of people will ever see it. Currently, I imagine it will end up on my Netflix queue. This is a damn shame. If the movie was going to be adapted from an Abnett novel with Abnett doing the adaptation you could have a blockbuster! The movie could be billed as an action scifi and depending on the choice of work, horror. The scifi movie genre has been pretty stale and lacking anything new and Warhammer 40k has everything required to create an awesome movie that would appeal to current fans of 40k and the main stream public. A few years ago I would have hesitated to say that. However, since both DC and Marvel have turned their works into movies, some of which have been good, and the general public sees those; you could definitely get people into see a 40k movie especially if it was well written, and based on a solid story.

Of course the actual movie that is in the works is not going to be nearly as cool as it could be. Rather, the movie is going to just be Space Marines versus Orcs. This basically means that no one will see this movie and, once again, Warhammer’s potential is being squandered.
This is totally my opinion, maybe the movie will be cool, and maybe there are loads of problems with having an Abnett’s based movie or a 40k MMO, but I am going to issue a challenge to Games Workshop to “do something new, unique and challenging with your 40k IP.” And please try to do it before Star Craft II comes out! Now, I would suggest you go take a shower and wash all the Cheetos dust off.